Mary Beth Ellis, 35, has won four of five Ironman races. She began training a few years ago after developing hip problems.

Mary Beth Ellis, 35, recently won her fourth ironman competition. She began ironman training only years ago. She is a contender for the ironman world championships in October. She is photographed training near her home in Superior today May 29th, 2012. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

When Boulder-area athlete Mary Beth Ellis was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in her right hip in 2005, it seemed the degenerative joint disease might end her competitive long-distance running career.

Not so fast. Ellis had bigger plans.

Ellis, who lives in Superior, introduced swimming and biking to her workout regime, began training in Colorado Springs with USA Triathlon and set her sights on making the Olympic team. She’s now one of the world’s premier professional female Ironman athletes.

“She’s probably one of the toughest triathletes that came through the national program in a long time,” said Scott Schnitzspahn, a former director at USA Triathlon who is in a similar position with the U.S. Olympic Committee. “After a while, it became obvious that the longer stuff, the Ironman, is her speciality, as opposed to the more tactical, Olympic racing.”

The Ironman is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. The Olympic women’s triathlon is a 1,500-meter swim, a 40-kilometer draft-legal bike ride and a 10-kilometer run.

Ellis said she is able to do the more physically challenging longer distances by using a balanced approach to her training.

At the Ironman event in Texas, she set an event record time of 8 hours, 54 minutes, 58 seconds. She won her first three 2011 Ironman races in Austria, Germany and Canada, respectively, last summer. Her first world championship competition was her fourth Ironman in less than four months, a factor in what she regarded as a disappointing finish.

“Obviously, 15th in the world is good, but I was hoping for more, like a top five, and I think that’s what I’m capable of this year,” Ellis said Tuesday, taking time out between a long bike ride in Arvada, a modest run near her Superior home and a scheduled evening swim at her local health club. “I was a bit overdone entering Kona last year. After I won Austria, I had to do (Germany and Canada) to qualify for the world championship, which is based on points. I didn’t have enough points.

“This year it was great to start racing in the states. I felt fresh.”

Ellis, 34, trains from three to seven hours a day. She is on salary with her team, The Bike Boutique (TBB), and also gets individual sponsor support and earns prize money.

She is scheduled to return to team headquarters in Switzerland next week to prepare for an Ironman event in New York City in August, then prepare for the big race in Hawaii this fall by training either in Switzerland or Spain’s Grand Canary Islands.

As a youth in Delaware, Ellis played a handful of sports. While in college, she ran and swam competitively at Northwestern University.

She realizes the clock is ticking on her new career, and not only because of her age.

“It’s lingering,” she said of osteoarthritis, now in both hips. “My mom has had both hips replaced. It’s coming, but hopefully I can put off (surgery) until the technology becomes more advanced.”

WASHINGTON — Thirty games into the 82-game NHL season, and nearly six weeks after the Matt Duchene trade, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic discussed the state of his team before Tuesday’s 5-2 loss at the Washington Capitals.